The World Affairs Board is the premier forum for the discussion of the pressing geopolitical issues of our time. Topics include military and defense developments, international terrorism, insurgency & COIN doctrine, international security and policing, weapons proliferation, and military technological development.

Our membership includes many from military, defense, academic, and government backgrounds with expert knowledge on a wide range of topics. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free so why not register a World Affairs Board account and join our community today?

Would it be possible for NK and SK to duke it out on their own? This would be the ideal situation, I think, but Korea would be "too big to fail", so US and China would have to get involved, even if only as suppliers.

The only way to avert that would be to have KJU or the next Kim covertly assassinated and a kagemusha put in his place. Or a less violent approach may be more desirable. The objective would be to hijack the NK government and manipulate its policy-making organs. Although, this and more may have been anticipated and so countermeasures have probably been put in place to prevent this.

A better scenario would be if SK could trade openly with NK and allow the South's cultural influence to penetrate NK society. It would, over time, help raise the living standards of the Northerners and make it easier for NK to integrate with SK. However, the result of this social and cultural change would make the Kims' house of cards collapse. If the change were to happen at a glacial pace, the Kims could either adapt themselves to stay in the game or obfuscate the change so that, at least fundamentally, things are as they've always been.

Also, I still think Beijing has a vested interest in keeping KJU in power, even if he's been acting a bit uppity lately and causing the Chinese to feel embarrassed in the process. It's possible that, even if USKOR decided to pull out of Korea entirely, the Chinese - and Japanese - would feel uneasy about a reunified Korea, whether DPRK or ROK is running it.

China is not going to let the North loose. OOE has presented better points then my own about the borders and a mad rush of refugees over China's border which they wont allow to happen even know China prefers the Kims in NK.

Outside of that any attack on SK is going to be an attck on the US given the amount of troops stationed there.

Something that has not been mentioned here is that, if China does ultimately decide to invade NK, the groundwork will likely be done well before the first PLA units cross the Yalü. For one, Beijing may seek ways to reduce to almost nil the influence that the Kims have over their subjects, at least so that there is no real threat of having to fight hostile civilians as well as military units. As well, Beijing will want to make friends with SK and Japan so that they do not become too interested in NK once things go downhill.

Or Beijing might even pull some puppet strings from behind the scenes and arrange a quiet changing of the guard in P'yeongyang. However, they would have to pull this off without provoking a civil war, which would give rise to a mass exodus of war refugees.

China would provoke immediate reprisal from the US because of the troops being attacked.